1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a mobile telephone, and in particular, to an automatically closable mobile telephone in which a sub-body (flip or a folder) for protecting a keypad or an LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) can be automatically opened and closed against a main body by a simple switching operation by a user.
2. Description of the Related Art
Currently, mobile telephones are becoming increasingly smaller in size and support multiple functions to meet the user's various demands. Thus, the speaker, earpiece, flip cover, folder and keypad of the mobile telephone are also smaller in size but still support the multiple functions.
FIG. 1 shows a general flip-type mobile telephone, which is a typical manually closable mobile telephone.
Referring to FIG. 1, the flip-type mobile telephone is comprised of a main body 100, a flip cover (or sub-body) 200 and a hinge device (not shown) for mechanically opening the flip cover 200 at a specific angle. The sub-body may also include a folder cover for a folder-type telephone.
The main body 100 is comprised of an upper casing frame 101, a lower casing frame 102, and an antenna device 103 mounted at one side of an upper end thereof. Further, the main body 100 includes an earpiece 104 placed at an upper side thereof, a display 105 placed at a lower side of the earpiece 104, and a keypad 106 with multiple key buttons, mounted at a lower side thereof. In addition, the main body 100 includes a microphone 107 for converting a voice signal to an electric signal, which is mounted at a lower side of the keypad 106.
The flip cover 200 for protecting the keypad on the main body and concentrating a voice on the microphone is mounted by the hinge device such that the flip cover may be freely opened and closed against the main body. For a telephone conversation, the user opens the flip cover by hand, which is very inconvenient especially if he or she has other things to do, for example, while driving.
Although not shown, the folder-type mobile telephone also has the same problem.